Tulsa City-County Library - Thomas Pynchonhttp://www.tulsalibrary.org/tags/thomas-pynchon
enPynchon's 9/11 Novel by Nick Abrahamsonhttp://www.tulsalibrary.org/blog/pynchons-911-novel-nick-abrahamson
<div class="field field-name-field-news-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://www.tulsalibrary.org/sites/default/files/styles/medium/public/blogfiles/nick%20abrahamson%20012%20%282%29_7.JPG?itok=l4ccrWHa" width="146" height="220" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>Call it irony. Or kismet. Or a portent or an augury that the reclusive author whose most famous written passage ‘a scream came from across the sky’ should write a 9/11 novel. Those famous words opened <a href="#" title=" Gravity's Rainbow">Gravity’s Rainbow </a>but could easily describe Thomas Pynchon’s introduction to the literary community: readers and critics alike stopped, mouths agape, to take note, beginning with <a href="http://tccl.bibliocommons.com/search?t=title&amp;search_category=title&amp;q=gravity%27s+rainbow&amp;commit=Search&amp;searchOpt=catalogue" title=" Gravity's Rainbow">Gravity’s Rainbow </a>and continuing with each subsequent novel. His technical, complicated books are both taught as postmodern canon and enjoyed as a cult diversion. He peppers his novels with paranoia and conspiracy; there’s a raving fully-baked aging hippie beneath the solipsistic prose veneer.</p>
<p>But anyone who thinks Thomas Pynchon comes across as being tonally at odds with his subject (ahem, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/books/review/bleeding-edge-by-thomas-pynchon.html?_r=2&amp;" title="Link to New York Times review">Jonathan Lethem</a>, ahem) won’t have too many scruples with Pynchon’s National Book Award contender, <a href="http://tccl.bibliocommons.com/search?t=title&amp;search_category=title&amp;q=bleeding+edge&amp;commit=Search&amp;searchOpt=catalogue" title=" Bleeding Edge">Bleeding Edge</a>. Though the plot takes place during the year leading to September 2011, the tone adheres closer to our present post-Patriot Act political state rather than the syrupy sentimentality of Safran Foer’s<a href="http://tccl.bibliocommons.com/search?t=title&amp;search_category=title&amp;q=extremely+loud+and+incredibly+close&amp;commit=Search&amp;searchOpt=catalogue" title=" Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"> </a><a href="http://tccl.bibliocommons.com/search?t=smart&amp;search_category=keyword&amp;q=extremely+loud+and+incredibly+close&amp;commit=Search&amp;searchOpt=catalogue">Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close</a>. The plot is a tech-y whodunit. Private Detective Maxine Turnow catches the nefarious whiff of a dodgy tech start up hashslingerz and falls down the rabbit hole of hackers, computer programmers, fund funneling, money laundering, G-men in black trench coats, Second Life program models, corrupt dot.com moguls, Deep Web, the Montauk project, and shoulder mounted missile launchers, along with a laundry list of half baked conspiracy theories.</p>
<p>While Pynchon deals with 9/11 with aplomb--equally conscientious of the shadow that enveloped New Yorkers day to day as well as the larger picture, the ushering in of a CCTV, War is Peace era--he takes truthers and other conspiracy theorists to task. Pynchon is well acquainted with conspiracy, Turnow quips ‘paranoia’s the garlic of life’s kitchen…you can never have too much’. And while Pynchon populates this novel to the brim with shadowy forces, he is more concerned with our need to create an inside-man scapegoat. ‘Somewhere, down at some shameful dark recess of the national soul, we need to feel betrayed, even guilty. As if it was us who created Bush and his gang, Cheney and Rove and Rumsfeld and Feith.’ That our reaction to 9/11 was the real tragedy. While Pynchon may find the truthers absurd, <a href="http://tccl.bibliocommons.com/search?t=title&amp;search_category=title&amp;q=bleeding+edge&amp;commit=Search&amp;searchOpt=catalogue" title=" Bleeding Edge">Bleeding Edge </a>seeks to reveal the more sinister shadowy, relentless, and corrosive forces obstructing our view of Reality.<br />
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/thomas-pynchon" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Thomas Pynchon</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/jonathan-lethem" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Jonathan Lethem</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/jonathan-safran-foer" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Jonathan Safran Foer</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-blog-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/blog/reading-addict" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Reading Addict</a></div></div></div>Mon, 04 Nov 2013 15:33:15 +0000Cindy7556 at http://www.tulsalibrary.orghttp://www.tulsalibrary.org/blog/pynchons-911-novel-nick-abrahamson#commentsThe PoMo Historical by Nick Abrahamsonhttp://www.tulsalibrary.org/blog/pomo-historical-nick-abrahamson
<div class="field field-name-field-news-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://www.tulsalibrary.org/sites/default/files/styles/medium/public/blogfiles/nick%20abrahamson%20012%20%282%29.JPG?itok=L-ESMems" width="146" height="220" alt="Photo of Nick Abrahamson" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>Postmodern seems to be one of those words academics love to throw around, while others might see the term at best as nebulous or at worst intimidating. Like the prefix ‘meta-’, or perhaps an art movement, it can mean many things simultaneously: postmodernism has its hallmarks, some elements that reappear across works within the tradition. But it doesn’t have to be scary. Think of Post-rock, also a very vague term for a music genre that is mostly defined by long instrumentals. This can refer to movements of Bach-ian complexities. Or a cinematic band such as Explosions in the Sky that specializes in rapturous crescendo after crescendo, effortlessly evocative by employing euphoric peaks and valleys. Below are postmodern novels with a strong historical theme/narrative.</p>
<p><a href="http://tccl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/1380791063_underworld" title=" Underworld">Underworld </a>by Don Delillo<br />
Under the pallor of Cold War paranoia, Delillo delivers a riveting novel about the intersection of lives. Delillo seamlessly toggles between the macro, panoramic perspective and the clear, detailed lives of his characters. Fragmentation and nonsequential chapters maintain the unexpected while exploring many lives at once.</p>
<p><a href="http://tccl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/1495400063_city_of_god" title=" City of God">City of God </a>by E.L. Doctorow <br />
City of God has an apparently infinite supply of characters at the ready, all passing through the perspective lens of the protagonist. Using historical New York in all its multitudes Doctorow delivers a ‘dazzlingly inventive masterwork…a defining document of our times, a narrative of the twentieth century written for the twenty-first.’ </p>
<p><a href="http://tccl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/2164289063_zeroville" title=" Zeroville">Zeroville </a>by Steve Erickson<br />
Vikar Jerome enters the vortex of a cultural transformation: rock and roll, sex, drugs, and-most important to him-the decline of the movie studios and the rise of independent directors. Jerome becomes a film editor of astonishing vision. Through encounters with former starlets, burglars, political guerrillas, punk musicians, and veteran filmmakers, he discovers the secret that lies in every movie ever made.</p>
<p><a href="http://tccl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/2381492063_gravitys_rainbow" title=" Gravity's Rainbow">Gravity’s Rainbow </a>by Thomas Pynchon<br />
Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, Gravity's Rainbow is a postmodern epic, a work as exhaustively significant to the second half of the twentieth century as Joyce's Ulysses was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative and penetrating analysis of the impact of technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.</p>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/don-delillo" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Don Delillo</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/el-doctorow" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">E.L. Doctorow</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/steve-erickson" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Steve Erickson</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/thomas-pynchon" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Thomas Pynchon</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-blog-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/blog/reading-addict" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Reading Addict</a></div></div></div>Fri, 16 Nov 2012 17:37:05 +0000Cindy1476 at http://www.tulsalibrary.orghttp://www.tulsalibrary.org/blog/pomo-historical-nick-abrahamson#comments